‘Fast-paced,' ‘snakey' and ‘commercial': How American student audiences make sense of representations of journalism in fictional television series

Abstract

This study set out to understand how student audiences make sense of fictional representations of journalism in television series. To do so, we conducted five focus groups with American students. First, participants expressed a need for more diversity in representations of journalism in terms of narratives and characters as they see fiction as a complementary source of information on the profession. They relied on non-fictional reference media, normative journalistic discourses, and if applicable, experiences with working in (school) newsrooms to make sense of these representations. Second, they discussed how public opinion on journalism is influenced by fiction and consequently fear that one-sided and stereotypical representations of journalism contribute to increasing the already low levels of mistrust in U.S. news media. This fear was also found to be gendered as the participants expressed concerns about the stereotypical representation of female and minority journalists as “bitchy” and “promiscuous.” This manuscript puts forward journalism fiction as a metajournalistic discourse in which non-fictional and fictional journalism blur in confounding ways.